


allegrezza

by firefeufuego



Series: sad orchestra au [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Competence Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:21:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23311549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefeufuego/pseuds/firefeufuego
Summary: Scenes from the superlatively happy ending of my orchestra au.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Series: sad orchestra au [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1106316
Comments: 37
Kudos: 58





	1. one month later (E)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wintersend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersend/gifts).



> First up, I'm a singer and not a violist or pianist so I do apologise if the following represents an overly unrealistic portrayal of how well it's possible to play these instruments while otherwise occupied ;)  
> Here are the links to the pieces featured if you'd like to listen along:  
> Viola Sonata by Rebecca Clarke  
> Nocturne No. 19 in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1 by Frédéric Chopin  
> Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor, Op. Posth., KK IVa, No. 16, B. 49

Jyn’s just started her runthrough of Chopin’s _Nocturnes_ when she hears someone enter the rehearsal room in August Memorial that Rodrigo’s so kindly allowed her to use for the past month. Cassian’s apartment is too small for her Steinway, so she spends most of her mornings practising here. Cassian doesn’t normally come to meet her so early, especially not on a Sunday after a performance, but she doesn’t truly realise something’s up until she hears the lock click.

She turns to look at him, her eyebrow raised.

He leans against the door frame, a familiar yet always thrilling heat in his eyes. ‘Keep playing.’ The words are a challenge and _ah_ , now she knows what this is about.

* * *

_Two days ago, Jyn came home from her morning run to Cassian playing Rebecca Clarke’s masterpiece of a viola sonata, using a backing track she recorded for him when they were first together. As she listened to him play, she was struck once again by the injustice of all the two-bit violinists out there with successful solo careers while someone with this much talent is stuck as a second chair (even though she knows how much he loves being part of an orchestra, loves contributing to something bigger than himself and God, she loves him so much)._

_For Jyn, living with Cassian means living in a near permanent state of latent desire and it only took a few minutes of watching his magnificent fingers at work for that desire to surface._

_During the short piano solo at the beginning of the third movement, he looked up from his music to see her standing there, no doubt with her cheeks flushed and eyes dark. His hand clenched around his bow for a moment and held her gaze as he came back in, the melody turned slow and aching. He imbued each note with a yearning that hit her as a blow to the chest and then coursed through her blood until every inch of her felt alive and electric._

_Unable to wait until he finished but also unwilling to interrupt him, Jyn crossed the room to where he was standing, stripping off her shirt as she went and grabbing a pillow that she placed on the ground at his feet. Slowly, she kneeled and smiled at his sharp inhale._

_Cassian stopped playing and moved to put his viola down but Jyn shook her head, her smile growing more wicked. ‘Keep playing.’_

_He visibly swallowed and obeyed, his sheet music forgotten as his darkened eyes watched her with a mix of apprehension and anticipation._

_Settling back on her heels, Jyn brought a hand up to trace slow patterns on his shin, his skin warm through the soft, thin fabric of his pyjama pants. With a playful twist of her lips, she moved up to tickle the sensitive skin behind his knee, chuckling when his leg jerked and he screwed up the phrase._

_He rolled his eyes down at her and tried to focus back on his playing._

_She kissed his thigh in apology, her hand going back to its gentle stroking of his leg. She moved it a little higher with each pass, noting with great satisfaction the way his muscles jumped in response to her touch._

_She kept on like that for a few more minutes, her eyes flickering between his face and his hands. The melody flowed onward and Jyn imagined it as a curtain of water, cutting them off from the rest of the world._

_Soon, the feeling of his skin through clothing wasn’t enough and she hurriedly undressed him as much as she could without interrupting his playing. The low sustained tremolos mirrored the slight trembling of his legs._

_When she finally wrapped her hand around his cock, Cassian moaned but managed not to miss a beat. He did falter when, after stroking him to full hardness, she took the flushed head of him in her mouth._

_With a breathless gasp, he wrenched his head away from the sight of her, focusing back on his sheet music in an effort to last longer._

_The music went from adagio to agitato, requiring more of his attention as the piece began to move towards its climax. Jyn switched her attention from the head of his cock to the less sensitive shaft, slowly pressing soft kisses along the length of it._

_While his playing was not quite as flawless as it had been before, if it weren’t for the heavy hitches in his breathing, she would never have guessed there was anything distracting him. That was her Cassian, a consummate professional even when someone was sucking his dick._

_Once she thought he could handle it, she wrapped her lips around him again, maintaining her slow pace and supporting his shaky legs with her hands. She kept the slide of her mouth down his cock relatively shallow, enough to satisfy but not to overwhelm. The wet noises her mouth was making were thrillingly obscene in contrast to the music and she found herself matching its rhythm, moving her lips back and forth on each downbeat. As the tempo sped up, so did she, and she could tell by the twitching in his thighs that she was getting him close._

_Then came a slower interlude, beginning with another piano solo. She pulled off him to let them both catch their breath._

_The brief respite reminded her of the ache of her own arousal and how desperately she wanted those masterful fingers inside her. Squirming a little, she leaned in closer so that her whole chest was pressed against his legs and shivered at the rub of his coarse hair against her nipples. She was a moment away from forgetting this whole thing and pulling him down to the floor with her before she thought of the unspoken promise she’d made months earlier - that she’d taken five years away from him and that now she had to try to give something back._

_Cassian groaned at the feel of her. He was practically panting and she could see the effort it was taking to keep the arm and shoulder supporting his viola steady. He just managed to master himself before his entry and Jyn watched hungrily as his fingers danced along the fingerboard to play the septuplets. This was one of her favourite parts of the piece to play with him, with the piano and viola quietly and gently echoing each other like an intimate conversation. She knew the next section was particularly challenging for him, so she rested her head on his thigh, fingertips barely grazing his cock, and listened until it was finished. Now, she thought with no small amount of satisfaction, she could hear the effects of what she’d been doing to him in his playing. Determined to wreck him even more, Jyn pulled on his t-shirt to catch his gaze before taking him in as far into her mouth as he’d go._

‘Fuck, Jyn.’ _The curse burst out of him, punctuated by the discordant whine of his bow sliding uncontrolled down the strings._

_She moved her head back just enough to get comfortable and then waited until he started playing again. This time, she didn’t stop._

_Her tongue laving the thick vein on the underside of his cock, her cheeks hollowed until the suction was just on the right side of too much, Cassian’s small, involuntary sounds devolved into a stream of groans and murmured pleas. He was still managing to keep up with the increasingly difficult music but the strain of it was now obvious._

_Jyn was almost tempted to tell him he could stop, there was precious little room in her mind for anything other than the way he was starting to fall apart for her, but that would have required her to take her mouth off him, which was now completely unacceptable even with the growing ache in her jaw._

_His gaze was glued to where she was taking him in, cheeks flushed bright and his throat working with every gasped breath. His hips had started to rock into her despite himself, though even when he was losing control he was always careful enough not to choke her._

_The evidence that he was so close made Jyn moan herself and she let herself be louder than normal so he could feel it better._

_‘Jyn, can I?’_

_She was in absolutely no position to deny him, as desperate for him to come as he was. Making sure her arms were ready to brace him, she hummed her assent._

_He let go immediately and Jyn was more than willing to bear the bitter taste of it just for the rush of power at the way he pulsed against her tongue, too overwhelmed to give voice to his shout._

_She swallowed quickly then reached for her discarded shirt to clean him up, her other arm still bearing his weight while he came back to himself. Her hand stroked his trembling thigh in the now quiet room. ‘You were so good, Cass.’_

_He smiled down at her, sated and stunning. ‘At what? The playing or the other thing?’_

_Chuckling, she pressed a kiss to his hip. ‘Both, just like always.’ There was another beat of easy silence before she said, ‘Seriously, more people should get to hear you play.’_

_With a shrug, he set his viola down on a nearby chair, stroking it with a care he gave to nothing else but her. ‘No one wants to pay to hear a solo violist. I knew that going in.’_

_Standing with a slight groan as her knee twinged, Jyn made her way to the kitchen to rinse out her mouth. ‘_ I _would pay a lot of money to hear you.’_

_He wrapped his arms around her from behind, nipping behind her ear then soothing the skin with his tongue. ‘Well, then aren’t you so lucky that all you have to give is a kiss?’_

_In one smooth movement, he turned her around then picked her up and set her on the counter._

_She framed his dear face in her hands and murmured, ‘I am pretty lucky, yeah,’ before leaning down to kiss him._

_Lost in the slick heat of his mouth, her bare skin brushing against the soft cotton of her favourite grey t-shirt of his, the stone beneath her and his arms around her felt like the only things keeping her from melting to the floor. She wrapped her legs around his hips and settled in._

_Minutes passed by unnoticed, the quiet only interrupted by small sighs of satisfaction and the slide of their lips against each other. They’d become so well-practised at this over the years that kissing no longer required any conscious thought, leaving Jyn’s mind empty of anything but the glorious haze of easy pleasure._

_After a while though, Cassian’s lips left her mouth and started trailing down her neck, stopping to lavish attention on her aching breasts before moving down further. He grabbed the footstool Jyn used to reach the top shelves in the cupboard and kneeled on it in front of her, his face level with her hips. His intentions, already well apparent, were made clearer when he began kissing her inner thighs through the fabric of her leggings._

_Jyn frowned. She was almost out of her mind with wanting this - Cassian’s mouth was nearly as talented as his hands - but something about the sight of him on his knees seemed off. He looked... penitent_ _and the guilty voice that had replaced the fearful, mistrustful one in her brain whispered once again that she hadn’t earned the right to be selfish with her pleasure. It was why she’d rushed through all his attempts at foreplay since she’d come home to him._

_As nonchalantly as she could, she lifted her leg over his head and slipped off the counter, taking his hand and leading him towards the bathroom. ‘C’mon, I’m too sweaty for that. I need a shower.’_

_He followed quietly behind her but she could practically hear his mind whirring deciding how far to push it._

_With coaxing kisses and a small water fight, she managed to distract him until he got hard again and the orgasm she had as he held her up against the tiles felt all the better for the wait._

_Still, she should have known he wouldn’t let it lie for long._

* * *

Back in the rehearsal room, Cassian’s dragged another piano bench up perpendicular to hers, straddling it and wrapping his arms around her waist.

Jyn keeps playing, letting muscle memory do most of the work while her mind focuses on the way his breath is hitting the skin behind her ear.

They stay like that through opuses 9 and 15 and the only part of Cassian that moves is his thumb at her waist, drawing gentle circles that slowly light up her body like a sunrise. He pauses during Op. 27, which requires a bit more concentration, but once she starts the less demanding Op. 32, he leans forward, pressing his chest against her back.

The warmth of him is a welcome contrast to the cool air of the room and she settles back against him with a contented sigh.

After a moment, he says, ‘We need to talk about what happened on Friday.’

She frowns a little, suddenly nervous about the fact that this is their first potential point of disagreement since she’s come back. She’s been trying so hard to be open with him and to fight back against the kind of negative thoughts that ruined everything last time. The problem is, the guilt she feels is warranted, at least in part, and she can’t stand putting Cassian in the position of comforting her about it when he’s the one she hurt.

He sees her expression and places a reassuring kiss to her temple. ‘I get it, Jyn, I do, and I should have noticed something was up earlier.’ There’s shame in his voice and she can’t bear it.

‘No, Cassian, it wasn’t…’ she huffs and stops playing, turning in his arms so she can see his face. ‘It’s not like I’ve ever gone unsatisfied. Like, at all.’ She presses a quick, hot kiss to his lips. ‘I just wanted to make sure you always felt good too.’

He nods, expression soft, arms tightening around her waist. ‘I know. Still, we can’t go on like this - my forgiveness is not conditional on you trying to please me, Jyn. You already have it, I promise.’

She does know that, and she trusts him with her whole heart, but it’s still a relief to hear him say it. She brings one of his hands up to her mouth and kisses it with all the endless adoration she feels for him.

Cassian presses his cheek against hers. ‘You’re my partner. We have to be equals in this.’ After she’s nodded her head and they’ve both taken a moment to collect themselves, his mouth moves toward her earlobe and he gently worries it between his teeth as he turns her back towards the piano. His voice turns dark and low, knowingly pitched to make her tremble. ‘Do you remember where you were up to?’

She sighs, knowing he’s going to make this just as difficult for her as she did for him but recognising that turnabout is fair play. Instead of picking up where she left off, she skips ahead to the posthumous nocturnes that she knows the best, the ones she’d listened to her mother play on tape over and over after she’d died.

Cassian gives her a moment to settle into the rhythm of the piece. The rolling arpeggios played by her left hand wash over both of them like the tide as her right hand begins the soulful, song-like melody.

After a few bars, he kisses the skin just behind her ear before trailing his lips down her neck to trace along her collarbone, leaving shivery heat in their wake. One of his hands moves to unbutton her shirt while the other goes to rest on the zipper of her jeans. The pressure of it is enough to send a dull, throbbing pleasure through her, but it’s the promise of the touch that quickens her breathing, a sigh passing through her parted lips. His mouth making its way back up her neck, Cassian murmurs, ‘I do have a more selfish reason for wanting this.’

Her questioning hum turns into a quiet moan as his fingers dip underneath her bra to circle her nipple, tightening around it for a quick moment before soothing it again. The edge of pain hits her like the trace of dissonance in the harmony, intensifying the pleasure from everything else.

He continues, his voice somehow getting even lower, ‘Did you like it, Jyn, when you had me in your mouth, shaking and desperate for you?’ The hand between her legs presses harder in time with his last words, his index finger reaching down to rub the denim covering her cunt.

This time her moan is much louder, echoing off the walls. Suddenly aware that they’re technically in public, she tenses.

‘Don’t worry, there’s no one else here. You can be as loud as you want.’ He tenderly kisses the side of her head. ‘But I don’t think you answered my question.’

She huffs. ‘Yes, I liked it. I always like it.’

She can feel his smile against her hair. ‘Uh-uh. Even though I wasn’t touching you?’ He asks the question in the knowing, charming tone of the excellent lawyer he would have been if he weren’t such an obscenely good violist.

Rolling her eyes, she replies, too breathy to be convincingly annoyed, ‘Yes. You’ve made your point.’ The tension in the music builds as it approaches the introduction of the second theme and Cassian’s hands follow its lead. Her skin feels tight and blindingly aware of every place he’s touching her. The soft cotton of her underwear starts to slide with the movements of his hand as she gets wetter, the damp fabric heightening the gentle rasp of the zipper against her clit.

‘I’m not sure I have. I don’t think you’re quite aware of how much I’ve been wanting to touch you like this, Jyn.’ With that, he undoes the button on her jeans and slowly unzips them, his breath getting heavier against her neck as he feels the evidence of just how much she’s been wanting him to touch her like this too.

He keeps his touch light and teasing as the music gets more complicated, the first theme returning with all the ornamentation that a nineteen year old Chopin could come up with. Jyn’s lucky that she’s practised these trills so many times she could play them in her sleep otherwise she’d have no hope now. He draws closer to sensitive skin as the tempo and complexity eases towards the end of the piece, grazing her clit as she plays the final notes before pulling away entirely.

Jyn opens her mouth to protest but he’s pulling her shirt and bra off with a desperation that matches her own so she simply moves to help, pulling off the rest of her clothes like they’re burning her.

She can’t help but laugh though when Cassian takes a towel out of the bag he brought with him and lays it on her piano bench — which, of course. She strokes his face fondly as she chuckles. ‘My darling little boy scout.’

He huffs but she can feel the smile he’s trying to hide. ‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh when I told you about that.'

Trying and failing to school her face into seriousness, she says, ‘I’m not laughing. I think your commitment to preparedness is really admirable. I can’t wait for you to show me your Hygenic Public Sex Practices badge when we get home.’

He groans loudly. ‘Oh my god, will you just sit back down?’

She does, still snickering. ‘Yes sir, Mr. Troop Leader.’

He sits behind her, pulling her against him again. Her moan at the feeling of him against bare skin interrupts her laughter. Cupping her breast in his hand while the other strokes her stomach, he presses his smiling mouth against her ear. ‘Not that it matters, but I was a Varsity Scout and we had different titles.’

She lays her head on his shoulder so she can look up at him. ‘Oh yeah? What was yours?’

Leaning down to kiss her, he pauses just long enough to whisper, ‘Captain.’ He swallows her moan and playfully bites her lip before pulling away and nudging her back towards the piano. ‘Don't think you can distract me that easily, Jyn.’

With a theatrical sigh, she begins Nocturne no. 20, deliberately setting a slower tempo than normal to make it easier on herself as Cassian’s hands trail down her stomach to between her legs. Thankfully, he seems to have decided to stop teasing her. His left hand starts working her clit, the groove-like calluses he gets from playing creating delicious friction, while a finger from his right hand gently slips inside her, careful as he always is at the start while he figures out what her body is ready for.

Jyn tries to keep her eyes on the keys and not on the sight of his beautiful hands on her naked body but she can’t help but steal glances every few seconds. Hearing Cassian’s breath hitch as she plays the trills makes her pay closer attention though. Just because she’s given in to his need to please her doesn’t mean she can’t make him lose a bit of control too.

‘You’re glorious, Jyn’, he whispers, ‘I will never get enough of you.’ His voice and the sweet, smooth melody flows over her like silk, wrapping her in a delicate, shimmering bubble of a moment.

Easing another finger inside her, he sets a slow but steady rhythm, closely following the music. She breathes out a shaky sigh that turns into a moan as his lips return to her neck. Lush, languorous pleasure spreads through her. Even if she weren’t so utterly devoted to him, he would still be the best lover she’s ever had or could even imagine having. His long fingers are able to reach deep even with the awkward angle and their strength means she never has to worry that he’ll get tired or sore and leave her hanging.

But of course, part of why he fucks her so well _is_ because of how they feel about each other — the fact that she feels so safe and calm in his arms that she can give herself completely over to desire, the fact that over the years they’ve been together, he has learnt every inch of her body and what it needs. It’s why his fingers know exactly how to bring her up to the edge of how much she can bear and when to back off if it gets to be too much.

By now, Jyn’s every heaving breath ends with a hungry, unrestrained sound and she catches herself making mistakes she hasn’t made with this piece since she was twelve years old.

Once she reaches the fermata at the end of the middle section, Cassian’s hands get faster, trying to make her come before the end of the piece.

She groans, both in pleasure and complaint, before panting, ‘This is the hardest part, Cass. I can’t-’

He laughs, hooking his fingers inside her and pinching her clit just enough to make her cry out. ‘You think it was easy to play the end of Clarke’s sonata with those luscious fucking lips of yours wrapped around my cock? Fair’s fair, my love.’

The words are nearly enough to make her come by themselves and she knows she’s close. At this point she’s not really sure if she’s playing the trill on purpose or if her hand is just trembling.

Cassian somehow curls his right wrist even more, his fingers sliding just that bit deeper, but as she comes up to the really diabolical scale runs, he stills both hands, using just enough pressure to keep her wavering on the edge. ‘Come on, Jyn. You’re the best musician I’ve known in my life, show me you can do it.’

She clenches around his fingers in retaliation, letting out a near scream, but she’s Saw Gerrera’s student and he made her practise under more difficult conditions than this. Using every ounce of strength and control in her fingers, she glides through each run, making every note sound like it’s floating as easy as gossamer.

Pressing his forehead to her shoulder for a moment, Cassian makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat. ‘That’s it, my good, fucking _virtuosic_ girl. Come, Jyn. Let me feel it.’

The world whites out, the dissonant noise of her hands slamming randomly down on the keys just a distant murmur compared to her full-throated shout. Even after the first rush, the pleasure keeps hitting her in waves, flowing thick and molten-hot through her veins and washing her up a shivering and satisfied wreck wrapped in Cassian’s arms.

He holds her up, soothing her with soft kisses and gentle touches. Blissed out of her mind, she turns into him and nuzzles against his chest, pressing her own kiss above his heart.

After a while, he reaches down for her bra and shirt and helps her put them back on.

Jyn stands on still shaky legs and dresses the rest of herself before pulling him up to kiss him properly. They stay like that for long, luxurious minutes until finally she sighs and steps back. ‘I’ve still got another few hours to go, I haven’t got my head around the Prokofiev yet.’

‘Okay.’ He leans down to kiss her nose, scrunched as it always is when she doesn’t get her way with music, and takes back his towel, folding it neatly before putting it back in his bag. ‘I thought I’d go to the farmer’s market since I’m up, what do you want for dinner?’

Her mouth waters as she remembers the meal he’d made last time he’d gotten his hands on properly fresh ingredients. He’s gotten even better at cooking since they last lived together and he already used to make the best food Jyn'd ever had. ‘Umm, that one with the tomatoes from when Rodrigo came to dinner, please. And elotes. Grab some cash out of my wallet.’

He does and then shrugs into the jacket he left on a chair near the door. Jyn comes over and wraps his scarf around his neck, bundling him up against the brisk morning air outside.

Taking her into his arms again, Cassian looks down at her with a playful little smirk on his face. ‘I’ll see you at home…’ He pauses to run a finger across her bottom lip, ‘... and if you’re nice to me, I might just pull out my merit badge sash.’ His eyes crinkle up in a grin and she wonders if there’s something wrong with her that she can both want to fuck him and pinch his cheek like a grandma at the same time.

She groans good-naturedly. ‘I can’t believe I’ve ended up with such a _nerd._ ’

‘You love it.’ He says it without thinking twice, with the rock-solid trust of someone who knows just how deeply they’re loved.

Jyn glows at the thought, pulling down on his scarf for a riotous, joyous kiss and whispering, ‘I love it _so_ much’. With a wicked smirk of her own, she asks, ‘If I promise to be _very_ nice, can you promise to be wearing nothing but that sash when I come home, Captain?’

He winks and throws a perfect three-fingered salute that sends a shiver down her spine despite herself before he unlocks the door and leaves with an easy, ‘See you then. Love you.’

Jyn sighs in bone-deep contentment, her body still loose and satisfied and her heart full. She thinks of the box hidden away in her suitcase, waiting for Christmas, and feels certain and excited about her future in a way she hasn’t since she was a child.

‘Okay, you Russian bastard, bring it.’


	2. november (G)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a spare day on a surprise trip to Mexico, Jyn meets some important people from Cassian's past. Set during Season 2 Episode 5 - 'El Regresso del Rey'.

‘Tepoztlán’, the voice of the driver carries down the bus as it comes to a stop and Jyn stands and reaches for her bag before stepping off into Cassian’s hometown. It’s a bit odd to be here without him, but the orchestra’s delayed flight out of Rio left her with an extra day in her little surprise trip to Mexico and there’s something here she wants to do alone.

Tapping in her destination on her phone, she sets off through the streets of the picturesque town, nestled in a valley between the soaring cliff sides of lushly forested mountains. Jyn’s less interested in the landscapes and architecture than the people though, because everywhere she looks, she sees a younger Cassian — in the two boys kicking a football back and forth that could be him and Rodrigo, or the babbling toddler sitting on his father’s shoulders.

There’s a bittersweet heaviness to those fond invented memories that mirrors the ache she feels when she thinks of her own childhood, those early years of happiness making the subsequent loss cut all the deeper. 

Still, better than to have never been happy at all, as Cassian would say if he were here. She misses him, even more than she has done for the past month that they’ve both been touring. 

She’s supposed to be in Belgium now before setting off for the last leg of the tour in Germany, but the thought of not being there when Cassian played his first professional concert in Mexico (a concert that he and Rodrigo had been stressing each other out over for months) was unacceptable. Or so she’d thought after a bottle of wine in her empty hotel room before shelling out more money than she’d rather think about for last minute flights.

Her phone buzzes in her hand, telling her she’s reached her destination. There’s a stand selling flowers near the entrance and she buys the two most expensive bouquets, feeling strangely nervous about first impressions even though the people she’s buying them for could literally not care less.

After a few minutes scanning the rows of stones, she finds them. 

Jeron Andor Lopez and Charlotte McMillan share a simple headstone, engraved with a short message about Cassian and — Jyn notes with a smile — a few of the best bars of the Brahms sonata. 

Laying down the flowers, she gets the water bottle and a packet of tissues out of her bag and sets about cleaning the dirt and dust off of the stone, which looks as if it had gone unvisited in some time. She knows Cassian is never able to visit as often as he wants to and he has no other living family in Mexico, which is why he had to move to the US to live with his mother’s dour brother after the accident. 

Once she’s done scrubbing, she drinks the rest of the water and sits beside the newly gleaming granite, looking around to check that she’s alone before clearing her throat awkwardly. ‘Hello. My name is Jyn Erso and I’m in love with your son.’ She pauses for a minute, tracing Cassian’s name. ‘You would be so proud of him, he’s just— he’s the best person. I feel like I should thank you both, for, you know, making him. I’m, um, I’m going to ask him to marry me soon, actually, which is kind of why I’m here. I think that if you knew me, and how I hurt him, you probably wouldn’t trust me with him. There are days when I don’t really trust myself with him. But I promise, on every grave in this place, that I will spend every day of the rest of my life trying to make him happy. And if I don’t, you can feel free to strike me down with whatever powers you have at your disposal.’ 

There’s no sudden burst of sun or gust of wind that she might imagine into a response, but the sense of duty that brought her here still feels satisfied. She feels the weight of responsibility of making that promise to the only other people who loved Cassian as much as her, but it feels grounding — more like an anchor than a burden.

After another few minutes of thoughtful silence, Jyn murmurs a goodbye and starts toward the second place she’d come here to see.

Maestro Rivera’s music conservatory is a gorgeous old building, bustling with young students lugging around instrument cases that are still just a bit big for them. There’s a particular kind of cacophony that only comes from music schools and makes her miss Yavin fiercely.

More than a few of the students recognise her and excitedly ask for selfies and after a few minutes of increasingly awkward smiling and being maneuvered within various configurations of friendship groups, she asks them where she can find the maestro. Two of them immediately appoint themselves as her guides, eagerly pointing out various ensemble rooms and places of interest, including a bin where the great Rodrigo de Sousa apparently set all the school’s Tchaikovsky scores on fire in a fit of adolescent pique. With the benefit of years of living with Cassian, Jyn just manages to keep up with their slowed-down Spanish, though she keeps her responses to a minimum to avoid having to use her apparently comical accent. 

About a month after that first recital at Yavin, Jyn — feeling outgunned in the romance stakes after Cassian had so tenderly nursed her back to health then treated her to a series of increasingly lovely dates — tried to tell him how she felt in Spanish, practising in the mirror more times than she was willing to admit until the words felt comfortable in her mouth.

Once she’d said them, Cassian’s expression was almost entirely charmed, but she still caught the laugh he’d quickly suppressed.

Flustered and a little dismayed, she asked, ‘How did I not get it right? I looked it up in a proper dictionary and everything.’

Quickly wrapping her in his arms, he explained between kisses that he’d just never heard such strongly Danish-accented Spanish before. ‘I think your brain just defaulted to the foreign accent it already knew.’

Somewhat mollified, Jyn nevertheless looked up the hardest words she knew in Danish and made Cassian pronounce them, which he did with exaggerated incompetence.

Then of course, because he really was impossible to compete with as a romantic, he took her face in his hands and said, his voice hushed and reverent, ‘I’m falling in love with you too.’

She shivers now as she did then, but her reverie is soon interrupted by their arrival at Maestro Rivera’s room. 

The man who opens the door looks like some kind of vengeful Old Testament deity, all stern brow and long, white beard. No wonder Cassian and Rodrigo are as good as they are, if this is who was telling them to practise. His face soon brightens as he takes her in though. ‘Ms Erso, what a pleasure.’ He takes her hand and presses it to his lips. ‘How you have grown since the last time I saw you.’

Jyn opens her mouth in surprise, brow furrowing. ‘When—’

He links his arm with hers and starts to walk down the hallway, raising an eyebrow at the two students who have surreptitiously moved to follow them and sending them scurrying off. ‘Your father and I crossed paths a few times before I retired here. I remember you as a very well-behaved young child at one of his concerts.’

‘That doesn’t really sound like me.’ _Hellion_ had been bandied about quite a lot during her childhood.

‘Ah!’ He chuckles. ‘Perhaps not normally, but you were so enchanted by the music, even then. You followed your father’s fingers so closely, I’m surprised you didn’t turn out to be a violinist.’

‘I nearly did.’ She’s about to go on to explain why she chose piano instead, but decides she’s had enough of thinking about children losing their parents for one day.

‘Now, I think that you did not come here to talk about _your_ past.’ Guiding them to one of the many photos lining the corridor, he points to one with a hint of mischief. ‘Maestro de Sousa tells me one of my other students has caught your eye.’

The photo shows a string ensemble mid-performance and in the first row sits Cassian at around eight years old, face serious as he holds his little 13 inch viola aloft. She gasps out a delighted laugh at his terrible haircut and chubby cheeks, marvelling at how they could have transformed into the razor-sharp beauty of the man she knows. 

Maestro Rivera laughs along with her. ‘Puberty really was a blessing for that boy. But so talented.’ He frowns. ‘I’ve always thought he’s wasted on the viola. You know, I tried so hard to get him to switch to the violin, but he would not listen.’

Jyn thinks of how Cassian’s face lights up when he’s playing with the orchestra in a way that it never quite does when he plays alone. ‘He’s too selfless for violin, he just likes making other people sound good.’

The maestro hums in acknowledgement. ‘And of course there was his mother. A truly impressive musician. She played like you, not quite as beautifully as Cassian, but with such fire.’

‘With the blood?’

‘With the blood, exactly. I see someone has been stealing my lines.’ He leads her down the corridor to other photos of Cassian, including one of him and Rodrigo in a string quartet, arms around each other and smiling. Jyn gets out her phone and is about to take a picture of it when Maestro Rivera plucks the frame off the wall and hands it to her. ‘Consider this my payment.’

Raising an eyebrow as she puts the photo away, she asks, ‘Payment for what?’

‘For the piano recital that you’re about to give for my students, of course.’ His tone is benevolent but brooks no argument and she pities the poor soul who would ever try to say no to this man.

Within half an hour, she finds herself seated at an old but well-maintained grand piano and surrounded by students. Most of the hastily-gathered crowd is seated but the maestro has allowed the pianists to come up close and they watch her technique with eagle eyes, making her think harder about it than she has in a while.

She plays the Prokofiev from her current tour repertoire along with some Beethoven and Mozart for good measure. Once she’s finished, the piano students are asked to list all of her mistakes, with any that they missed helpfully supplied by Maestro Rivera. 

It’s just like she’s back with Saw, and she makes a note to find his most recent contact details. Rumour has it he’s somewhere in Mongolia doing something interesting with throat singers.

After many more selfies and a fond ‘ _Hasta pronto’_ from the maestro, who’s coming to the concert in a few days, she’s put in someone’s parent’s car and driven back to the bus stop. 

While she waits, Jyn gets a message from Cassian. _You awake?_

She goes to call him before realising the country code will ruin her surprise and she doesn’t have enough data for an internet call. With a disappointed sigh, she replies, _Barely. Talk tomorrow?_

_Okay. Miss you._

She feels a little awful, knows he’s even more stressed about coming to Mexico and the concert than he’s letting on. But she’ll more than make up for it tomorrow. God, she’s never felt better about dropping two grand on a whim. _Miss you too, it’s not long now. Have a safe flight._

_Yeah, just two more weeks._ _I love you._

_Who knows, maybe it’ll feel shorter. Love you too. So much. Even without those cheekbones._

_?????_

_;)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a little interlude before the main next chapter, my very chronological muse wouldn't let me write that one before doing this. Hopefully that should be done soon - I do respond very well to external pressure so please feel free to bother me about it on my tumblr @firefeufuego2.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any prompts or things you'd like to see in the chapters to come, please let me know - either in the comments or at my tumblr


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